ILAR

Mandy Rose made $1 million in about a month from her own subscription page, right after WWE let her go over what she posted on it. Weeks earlier she had been its NXT women's champion for 413 days. She lost the title on a Tuesday night in December 2022 and was released the next day. She came in through WWE's Tough Enough show in 2015, finished second and got a contract anyway. By 2022 she had unified 2 women's titles, and Fightful reported she still had nearly 2 years left on her deal. Fightful also reported that WWE saw the content on her page as outside that contract. In the video below, 27 days later on The Tamron Hall Show, she says nobody told her that: "I was just told that I was going to be losing the title." She says there was one warning to take something down, and she took it down. Then Tamron Hall brought up a photo of Mandy posing with her 2 title belts that WWE itself had reposted, and asked if that was hypocrisy. "I don't have any control on how they run their business," Mandy says. "That's their opinion." She also says she is "very hurt," and that "no one wants to get that call that you're being fired from any job." Her agent, Malki Kawa, had already told TMZ the page made $500,000 after the release. Asked whether WWE could have paid her that kind of money, she says it would have taken a while, "long term." Big companies, she says, "usually kind of have all the power and they reap the benefits off of that." Now, she says, she can "self-monetize" her own name and image. 6 days after the release, the trademark on the name Mandy Rose was registered to WWE. In April 2023 WWE merged with the UFC in a deal that valued it at $9.3 billion, and in 2025 she said on her podcast that she makes about 10 times what WWE paid her in a year. WWE kept the name Mandy Rose, and the woman behind it made $1 million in a month without it. Did WWE let its champion go to protect a family-friendly brand, or because she found a way to make money from her own image that didn't go through WWE? I post one star like this every day, on camera and in their own words, about where the money went and who walked away with it.

Iggy Azalea says Universal Music owes her royalties "in the 8-figure range," and that its lawyers offered her $18,000 to settle. In 2014 she was the first artist since the Beatles to hold No. 1 and No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 at the same time with her first 2 hits. In 2023, she says, her own subscription page paid her a little less than $48 million in under a year. She left a small town in New South Wales for Miami at 16 to become a rapper. At 24, "Fancy" and her verse on Ariana Grande's "Problem" sat at No. 1 and No. 2 together, "Fancy" held No. 1 for 7 weeks, and 4 Grammy nominations followed. By 2019, Nightline says, the industry that made her had gone quiet. In the video below she says other artists kept their distance in public and "I was only welcome in secret." On a podcast in 2023 she put it this way: "I made a lot of people so much money off my body, and I got the smallest cut." She stepped away from music, and in 2023 she opened her own page. "I'm no fool. I've been paid before I even made the profile," she tells Nightline. Asked about the $48 million that went around, she says the real number is "a little lower," but "a life-changing number," and that it paid for the businesses she started next. In March 2025 she went public about Universal, which owns Def Jam and Island, the labels behind her first 2 albums. She says it has never paid her a royalty on anything her music earned outside the United States, that the dispute had gone on privately for over 2 years, and that $18,000 was the offer. Universal has not answered her in public. "I want control," she says. "A big part of the last 10 years of my life honestly has been about getting that control back." Universal put $18,000 on the table for an 8-figure claim, and her own page paid her what she calls a little less than $48 million in under a year. Did Universal shortchange the rapper behind 7 weeks at No. 1, or is she asking for more than the deal she signed as a new artist ever promised her? I post one star like this every day, on camera and in their own words, about where the money went and who walked away with it.

Vanessa Williams was Miss America, the first Black woman ever crowned, when Penthouse printed nude photos of her and reportedly made $14 million on a single issue. The photographer who took them, her former boss, said Penthouse paid him $50,000. She got nothing, and 10 months into her reign she was given 72 hours to give up the crown. She was a musical theater student at Syracuse. In 1983 her show got canceled, there was scholarship money on offer, and she entered a local pageant. She won Syracuse in April, New York in July and Atlantic City in September. In the summer of 1982 she had worked as an assistant and makeup artist for a photographer in Mount Kisco, New York. In the video below she says that after about a month he asked to take some pictures of her: "They'd be really artistic. No one's ever gonna see them." Her year as Miss America took her to a state dinner at the White House, where Lena Horne burst into tears meeting her. It also brought death threats from people who said a Black woman could not represent America. In July 1984 a New York Post reporter called her about photos coming out in Penthouse. "I know that I hadn't signed a release," she says, "so there's no way that anyone would be able to publish these pictures." Penthouse printed them on a model release from the 1982 shoot, and she has said for 40 years that she never signed one. She resigned on July 23, 1984, and the runner-up wore the crown for the last 7 weeks. Penthouse ran a second set from another photographer in January 1985. She sued the photographer and Bob Guccione for a reported $500 million, then dropped the case a year later. She says it set her career back about 10 years. In 1992 "Save the Best for Last" spent 5 weeks at No. 1, and in 2015 Miss America apologized to her and her mother on live TV. Penthouse reportedly made $14 million from those photos, and the woman in them lost her crown and was paid nothing. Was Vanessa Williams robbed by a boss who told her no one would ever see those pictures, or did a model release from the shoot make them his to sell? I post one star like this every day, on camera and in their own words, about where the money went and who walked away with it.

Paige VanZant was still on the UFC contract she signed at 22 when she left in 2020, and it paid her $46,000 a fight plus $46,000 for a win. 4 years earlier the UFC had sold for $4 billion. In 2023 she said she made more in 24 hours on OnlyFans than in her entire fighting career. She says she was born poor and grew up poor. She had an academic scholarship and was in community college at 16, then dropped her studies for fighting and won her first 3 UFC fights by 21. In December 2015 she headlined a UFC card on Fox against Rose Namajunas and lost. A few months later she finished second on Dancing with the Stars. In 2020 she told ESPN the show had paid her more than all 8 of her UFC fights combined. After her 3-0 start she won 2 of her next 5, and in a 2018 fight she broke her arm in the first round and fought all 3 rounds. In 2020 she had one fight left on the deal and wanted to see what other promotions would pay. "How do you know what your value is unless you can go test it amongst all the other sharks?" she said. She lost to Amanda Ribas in July, left with a 5-4 UFC record and signed a 4-fight deal with Bare Knuckle FC reported at more than $1 million. In 2021 she opened her own fan site, without the OnlyFans name on it. In the video below she says, "I didn't want to lose sponsors. I didn't want to lose opportunities in the fight world." 2 years later she says she was in a position where "I don't have to be paid by anybody." In 2023, after moving to OnlyFans, she told Barstool's Only Stans: "I think I made more money in 24 hours on OnlyFans than I had in my entire fighting career." She says people who grew up poor "always just feel poor," and that she and her husband now help their whole family. The UFC paid her $46,000 a fight after selling for $4 billion, and 24 hours on OnlyFans paid her more than her whole fighting career. Did the UFC underpay one of its best-known fighters, or was $46,000 a fair price for a fighter who went 5-4?

Bhad Bhabie had a song on the Billboard Hot 100 at 14 and a makeup line at 15 that reportedly brought in about $900,000, and she says she barely had anything when she turned 18. Her mother controlled her money and gave her a card with a $500 limit. 6 days after her 18th birthday she opened an OnlyFans, and by 2024 she says it had paid her $57 million. She was 13 when her mother took her on Dr. Phil in September 2016. The audience laughed at "cash me ousside, how bow dah," and the clip went viral while she spent the next 6 months at a ranch for troubled teens without a phone. In 2017 "These Heaux" made her the youngest female rapper ever to debut on the Hot 100, and Atlantic Records signed her to a multi-album deal. The makeup line with Copycat Beauty came in 2019. In the video below she tells Emily Ratajkowski, "My mom was in control of my money, so she was doing whatever she wanted to do, and I had a $500 limit on my card." Ratajkowski replies that she already had hits by then and still hadn't seen that money. Bhabie also says she found out on her 19th birthday that her mother had been emailing Dr. Phil since she was 2 years old. She opened the account on April 1, 2021, with no nudity, and it made more than $1 million in the first 6 hours. She had asked her manager for $3 million in savings and $100,000 a month. "And then it just like kept going and going and going," she says. In July 2024 she posted her totals: more than $71 million gross and $57 million after the platform's cut. She says she now owns about $2 million in cars. Asked how her mother feels about the account, she says, "That lady love money," and later that she thinks her mother feels bad. She had a hit song, a makeup line and a $500 limit at 17, and by her account the first money she controlled came 6 days after she turned 18. Was Barbara Bregoli keeping a teenager's money safe until she was old enough to handle it, or spending a famous child's money however she wanted?

Janine Lindemulder was the nurse on the cover of Blink-182's Enema of the State, an album that sold more than 15 million copies, when a federal judge sent her to prison over $294,000 in unpaid taxes. While she was inside, Jesse James took custody of their daughter and his wife, Sandra Bullock, helped raise the girl. Bullock had already written to the judge that the child was left alone while her mother was "asleep from drug use." Lindemulder finished high school in 1986, answered an ad for a figure model without knowing that meant nude, and was in Penthouse by December 1987. By 2002 she was in the p*rn industry's hall of fame. In 1999 MCA staff showed Blink-182 a selection of glamour photos and the band picked hers. Producer Jerry Finn said they had no idea what she did for a living until after they chose her. She married Jesse James, the biker behind West Coast Choppers and Monster Garage, in 2002. They divorced in 2004, the year their daughter was born, and a year later he married Bullock. In 2008 she pleaded guilty to willfully not paying her federal income taxes. In the plea she admitted that, knowing she owed the money, she put a down payment on a $647,000 house and bought a new Jeep and an RV. The judge gave her 6 months and ordered her to repay $294,000. When she got out she went after custody, and James and Bullock called her unfit. In the video below, her first interview about it, she asks, "What would give her the right to take away my daughter?" She admits "horrific choices," then says Bullock believes she is saving the girl "from me, from her own mother." ABC reported she had bad credit and a court order barring her from adult entertainment, the work she had done on and off since 1987. In December 2009 an Orange County court refused to expand her visits. 3 months later Bullock won the Oscar. She owed the IRS $294,000 and bought a $647,000 house anyway, and the woman who wrote to her judge helped raise her daughter. Was Sandra Bullock protecting that girl from her mother, or did a tax bill hand a movie star another woman's child?

Sylvester Stallone was 23 and sleeping in a New York bus station when he took $200 for 2 days on a softcore film in 1970. After Rocky won Best Picture, the film's owners renamed it Italian Stallion, rented it to theaters for $10,000 a night and offered to sell him the rights for $100,000. He said he wouldn't buy it for two bucks, and in 2010 it sold on eBay for $412,100. Last month, on Live with Kelly and Mark, he talked about those years. He was living in "a $21-a-week flop house with 10 other people" and snuck into Paramount, offering to "stand behind the cake" in The Godfather's wedding scene for "35, 40 bucks a day." The casting director told him, "I don't know if you look Italian enough." He skipped the job that got him out of the bus station. He told Playboy about it in 1978: "It was either do that movie or rob someone, because I was at the end, at the very end, of my rope." He called the film horrendous and said that by then it would almost get a PG rating. Rocky premiered in 1976 in a theater on Third Avenue with about 150 seats. He told Kelly that people bumped into him on the way in. He waited outside with his brother, heard a roar, and 2 hours later the same crowd walked out and recognized him. Months later he was nominated for Oscars as the film's star and as its writer. That is when the 1970 film came back with his character's nickname on the poster. When he heard what theaters were paying for it, he said, "Hell, for $10,000 forget the movie! I'll be there myself!" The owners wanted about $100,000 to keep it off screens, and he turned them down. It came out on DVD twice, and in 2010 the worldwide rights and the original 35mm negatives sold on eBay for $412,100. On November 20, 50 years after Rocky, a movie about how he made it, I Play Rocky, opens in theaters across the US. Stallone got $200 for those 2 days, and the people who owned the film sold its negatives for $412,100. Was Stallone right to refuse $100,000 for a film that paid him $200, or did that refusal let its owners cash in on his name for another 34 years?

Jessica Hahn was 21, a church secretary from Long Island, when TV preacher Jim Bakker had her flown to a Florida hotel in 1980. His ministry later spent $363,700 of its viewers' donations to keep her quiet about what happened in Room 538. By 1987, her lawyer said, about $20,300 of it had reached her. She babysat for half her church and had admired Bakker for years. A traveling preacher, John Wesley Fletcher, called to say Bakker was doing a telethon in Clearwater and could use a babysitter. She says the two men drugged and raped her that afternoon. Bakker always said it was consensual. In 1985 her adviser and Bakker's right-hand man, Richard Dortch, worked out a deal: $115,000 up front for her and her representatives, and $150,000 in a Los Angeles trust that would be hers after 20 years of silence. The story came out in 1987, Bakker resigned, and she went on Phil Donahue. "It was not blackmail. We don't pay taxes on blackmail," she said. "This was arranged for me for damages." She had received a first check of $20,000 and about $500 a month in interest, when it came. A man in the audience asked how her conscience let her cash the check. "I am not rolling in money," she said. "I did not get a bulk of that." When Donahue guessed Playboy had called, she said they all had, with "great sums of money," and she had taken nothing. "If I wanted a modeling career, I would have walked into a modeling agency at 14 and not a church." Three months later she was in the November issue of Playboy. Asked if it paid her $1 million, her lawyer said, "I'm not going to deny $1 million." In 1988 a bankruptcy judge ruled the ministry was owed $160,000 from her trust. In 1989 Bakker was convicted on 24 counts over $1,000 "lifetime memberships" at a resort that only ever finished one 500-room hotel. He served about 5 years and died last month at 86. Bakker's viewers paid $363,700 for her silence, and Playboy paid her to break it. Was PTL's money damages for what happened in that hotel room, as she told Donahue, or the price of a silence she later sold to Playboy?

Marilyn Chambers was 20, and her face was on the Ivory Snow box as the young mother holding a baby, when her first p*rn film came out. Behind the Green Door cost the Mitchell brothers about $60,000 and grossed about $50 million. Reports of what they paid her range from $2,500 to $25,000. She had moved to San Francisco to become an actress and paid the rent as a restaurant hostess and a dancer. A newspaper ad said "now casting for a major motion picture." At the audition she worked out what kind of picture it was and headed for the door. Jim and Art Mitchell called her back from the stairs to their office. "I gave them a price off the top of my head," she says, "and I told them I wanted a certain percentage of the gross." She thought that would end it. An hour later Jim called to say they were coming over with the contract. "Really, they called my bluff." She had forgotten to tell them one thing. At 17 she had shot a box for Ivory soap, "the mom on the box holding the baby." In her telling, it hit the shelves the same week as the film. The brothers walked down a supermarket soap aisle, saw her face and started calling everyone they could think of. "It was a PR man's dream," she says. The soap company pulled the box. In 1989 she told Larry King her share of the profits came to more than her salary. The video release stayed with the Mitchells. When she left them for a new manager, Chuck Traynor, they made a film about her life that she hated. "Jim and Art ripped me off," she said in 1992. "Only when money was to be made did we start talking again." In 1991 Jim shot Artie dead and served about 3 years for manslaughter. Marilyn died at home near Santa Clarita in 2009, at 56. Her teenage daughter found her. The Mitchells turned $60,000 into about $50 million, and Marilyn Chambers got the price she made up on the spot. Did the Mitchell brothers rip Marilyn Chambers off, or did she get exactly the deal she asked for?

Heidi Fleiss was 27 when police arrested her at the $1.6 million Beverly Hills house she had bought from Michael Douglas. Her clients, she says, were men who "can change the economy of a country." One of them, Charlie Sheen, admitted under oath that he spent $53,500 on her girls. He got immunity and went back to work. She got 37 months in federal prison. She grew up a pediatrician's daughter in Los Angeles. At 13 she was already running a babysitting business with 10 or 12 girls working for her. When she couldn't take a Friday night, she sent a friend and kept some of the money. "It was all about the money," she says. A decade later the same model was paying for Michael Douglas's house. Her girls flew all over the world. She drove Ferraris, lived above the Beverly Hills Hotel and wanted any girl who pulled up to her house to look at it and go, in her words, "whatever she is doing, I want to do it." The richest people in the world, she says, "probably have done business with me." The arrest came in June 1993, from a multi-agency task force. Two years later Sheen admitted on videotape to hiring her girls at least 27 times for more than $53,500. He testified under a grant of immunity and was never charged. A federal jury convicted her of tax evasion and money laundering, and in January 1997 a judge gave her the 37 months. She served about 20. "I could have sunk a ship," she says. "I could have brought a lot of people down." Her little black book never came out. Today she lives in the Nevada desert with the parrots a dying madam left her, so short of money that she has thought about running one of Nevada's legal brothels. She also says one tell-all book would "change my financial situation immediately." She has never sold the names. Sheen paid $53,500 and kept his career. She kept the names and paid with 20 months of her life. Should Heidi Fleiss have sold the names and fixed her money overnight, or is keeping quiet the one thing she got right?

Timbaland says he once got up to $500,000 for a single beat. Last week he sued his former manager and business manager for $15 million, saying he found out about an unpaid mortgage from a foreclosure notice. In the video below, from Earn Your Leisure, he says he spent his years as a hot producer "just blowing money." A friend bought a watch, he bought one too, then had to work out how to pay for it. The suit says business manager Bruce Seckendorf let the mortgage and federal taxes go unpaid, at a cost of millions in penalties and interest. Manager Gary Marella, it says, took $775,000 on a catalog deal, more than his 10% allowed. Marella says Timbaland was already in debt and renting when he took him on in 2017, that they brought in about $75 million in 9 years, and that the overspending was Timbaland's own. In April 2025, the suit says, Seckendorf blamed Timbaland for never asking for monthly reports. Whoever pays your bills, I'd ask for that report every month, because the foreclosure notice comes with your name on it. So who put Timbaland's house at risk, the 2 men he paid to run his money, or the producer "just blowing money"? I post one star like this every day, on camera and in their own words, about where the money went and who walked away with it.

T-Pain says he got a $40 million advance at 18 and went from that to less than zero. In September he sued the label that signed him back then, Akon's Konvict, saying it still owes him $489,047 in royalties. In the video below he says he only read that first deal in 2022, when buyers came for his catalog. It gave him 15% and the label 85%. "They gave me crazy money, so I didn't care," he says. It's his second suit against Konvict, which signed him together with Jive Records. The first, over unpaid royalties, ended in 2025 with a $114,000 settlement and no admission. The new one is over a $1.3 million royalty payment from March. Konvict didn't spend the advance, though. T-Pain says the first thing he bought was a pistol-grip shotgun, because his older brother never let him touch his. An advance is a loan against your own songs. I'd read the split before the number on the check, because the split keeps paying someone for 20 years. Who left T-Pain below zero, the label that kept 85%, or the 18-year-old who took $40 million without reading the deal? I post one star like this every day, on camera and in their own words, about where the money went and who walked away with it.

Steve-O says the entire first season of Jackass paid him less than $1,500 after taxes. The Jackass movies went on to make more than $500 million, and by the time the show aired, his money was long gone and he was famous. In the video below he explains how. He was paid per bit, $500 if he could get hurt and $200 if it was just funny, for things like hugging a shark and swallowing a goldfish. "No residuals, no nothing," he says. After episode 3 aired, the producers called to say MTV wanted 16 more episodes at $2,000 each. After taxes it came to about $20,000, and it arrived months later. Meanwhile Bam Margera, he says, was "selling more skateboards than Tony Hawk" and bought 2 cars at an Audi dealership, while Steve-O "couldn't afford two Whoppers." In fairness, the producers offered that raise themselves once the show was a hit. A fee per bit pays you for the work and leaves the hit to whoever owns the show. I'd take less up front for even a small share of what it earns. Who left Steve-O famous with no money, the producers who paid $200 a bit, or the 25-year-old who signed on with no residuals? I post one star like this every day, on camera and in their own words, about where the money went and who walked away with it.

Fat Joe says he wired his accountant up to $40,000 a month to pay his taxes. In 2013 he went to federal prison anyway, after prosecutors said he hadn't filed a return in 4 years and owed the IRS $718,038. In the video below he says he heard it first from a car salesman, who told him none of his mortgages or car notes had been paid. He called the accountant, who picked up saying, "Don't kill me." He says his lawyer showed the government every wire. As he tells it, the answer was, "We believe Joe, as the leader of his household, is responsible for who he hires." He paid the taxes again before his court date. In court he put it differently. "There was a lot going on in the years that I didn't file my taxes, but it was my responsibility," he said. The judge gave him 4 months and a $15,000 fine. A wire to your accountant only proves you paid your accountant, so I'd log into my own IRS account once a year and make sure the return is there. Who earned those 4 months, the accountant who kept the wires, or Fat Joe, who went 4 years without checking that a single return was filed? I post one star like this every day, on camera and in their own words, about where the money went and who walked away with it.

Megan Thee Stallion told a Houston court in 2020 that her music had made her label about $7 million, and she had been paid $15,000. One of the songs it was holding back, Savage, went to No. 1 with Beyoncé that spring. In the video below she explains why she signed. Her mom hated her job, Megan was still in school, and "that's a lot of money to somebody who trying to provide for their family, who ain't never touched $15,000 before." Her deal with 1501 Certified, Carl Crawford's label, gave it 60% of her recording income. Her lawsuit said her 40% also paid the engineers, mixers and features, and she says she had no lawyer until Roc Nation looked at it. Crawford tells it differently. "300 gave us a $200,000 check when we first signed. I gave her $50,000 of it," he said, and called her account untrue. In October 2023 they settled, terms confidential. The first check always looks bigger than the contract behind it, so I'd pay a lawyer to read the contract while you can still afford to walk away from the money. So who kept Megan Thee Stallion's money, the label with 60% of her recording income, or the student who signed for $15,000 without a lawyer? I post one star like this every day, on camera and in their own words, about where the money went and who walked away with it.

Mary J. Blige just made a deal with Primary Wave for the catalog behind Family Affair. In 2017 she told a Los Angeles court she was earning about $326,930 a month and owed the IRS about $6.5 million. In the video below she says she owed "so much money" she never thought she'd get out of debt. "Millions, millions, like hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes," she says. She is out of debt now. The unpaid years ran from 2008 to 2016. The IRS had already filed a $3.4 million lien in 2013, and $2.2 million of it was for 2010 alone. Her husband at the time, Kendu Isaacs, was also her manager. "When I was married, I was like, pay my taxes," she says. "They didn't listen to me." Then she adds, "He was in control of everything." Her own 2016 filing said they had "over spent." Now she treats payroll, taxes and tithes as "not my money" and pays them before she sees any of it. I'd copy that rule, because tax money left sitting in your account starts to feel like yours. So who let Mary J. Blige's tax bill reach $6.5 million, the husband she says controlled everything, or the star who spent the money? I post one star like this every day, on camera and in their own words, about where the money went and who walked away with it.

Boris Becker won $25 million in prize money, and says a £3.5 million loan later cost him 3 homes worth about 15 million. In 2022 a London court sent him to prison, partly over money he moved to his ex-wife and his estranged wife. In the video below he lists the houses in Mallorca, London and Germany. "So I've lost 15 million for 3.5 million debt," he says. Once the tennis money stopped, "I kept paying the ex-wives and the kids and the schools." Prosecutors called his business account a piggy bank. After his June 2017 bankruptcy it paid school fees, £19,000 to his ex-wife Barbara and £83,000 to his estranged wife Lilly. The jury convicted him on 4 of 24 counts. He served 8 months of a 2.5-year sentence and was deported to Germany in December 2022. He says the official handling his bankruptcy told him to pay bills from the company account and mention it later. When you owe money, I'd get every "that's fine" from an adviser or an official in writing before you spend a pound of it. So who cost Boris Becker everything, a bankruptcy that took 3 homes over one loan, or the champion who says he never read the small print? I post one star like this every day, on camera and in their own words, about where the money went and who walked away with it.

Katy Perry agreed to pay $14.5 million for a convent in Los Angeles. The 2 nuns fighting for it sold it to a restaurateur who put down $44,000, and one of them later died in the middle of a court hearing at 89. In the video below, one of the 2 sisters says the archbishop finally told them "do what you want," so they sold to Dana Hollister. "How can they steal our things?" she asks. The case for Perry: since 2005 a church official had been in charge of the last sisters, a judge ruled the archdiocese had the right to sell, and juries ordered Hollister to pay about $15 million. She filed for bankruptcy. The case for the nuns: they kept the house up on teaching money for decades and feared the sale money would go to an archdiocese that had agreed in 2007 to pay $660 million to abuse victims. Perry's option to buy ran out in 2019, and Sister Rita Callanan says she was left with nothing. I think whoever pays for your care ends up deciding what happens to your house. So who should have sold that convent, the nuns who paid for it or the church they had promised to obey? I post one star like this every day, on camera and in their own words, about where the money went and who walked away with it.

Cher says she stood by Sonny Bono for 12 years, including the months they were borrowing money from their own chauffeur. When she tried to leave in 1974, she found out the company named after her, Cher Enterprises, was 95% his, 5% his lawyer's and 0% hers. By then their TV show was drawing up to 30 million viewers a week. In the video below she says she kept asking him one question: "What were you doing when you thought, I'm gonna take Cher's money?" The only answer she says she ever got was "because I knew you'd always leave me." David Geffen read her contract and called it involuntary servitude, and she used those words when she filed for divorce. Their settlement did give her half the royalties from the songs they recorded together. Sonny died in 1998, his widow Mary Bono used a copyright rule in 2016 to take back his rights, and by 2021 the payments had stopped. Cher sued for at least $1,000,000, and in 2024 a federal judge ruled she was still owed her half, more than $400,000. This is Cher's account, from her 2024 memoir. Mary Bono's lawyers argued the law lets an artist's widow and children reclaim his songs. I think if your name is on the product and not on the shares, you work there. So whose money was it, the man who owned 95% of the company or the woman whose name was on it? I post one star like this every day, on camera and in their own words, about where the money went and who walked away with it.

DeMar DeRozan says he stayed in Toronto when every star before him left, and signed a $139,000,000 deal to finish his career there. In July 2018 the Raptors traded him for Kawhi Leonard, 5 months after he told the world he was fighting depression. This summer Toronto traded for Leonard again, and he reportedly sees it as his chance to retire there. DeRozan, now 37, was waived by Sacramento in July and signed with Denver for $3,900,000. In the video below he says he got the news after walking out of a movie. He had the car pulled over and sat outside a fast food place for 40 minutes, because 2 days earlier the team had talked with him about "running this whole thing back." When team president Masai Ujiri told him, DeRozan says, "I just hung up the phone." Ujiri apologized at his press conference for what he called a miscommunication, and the team has never confirmed DeRozan's version of that talk. Leonard played 1 season in Toronto, won the city its first NBA title in June 2019, then left for Los Angeles. I think loyalty in sports lasts as long as the contract says it does, and a conversation in Las Vegas is not part of the contract. So was Toronto wrong to trade the man who stayed, if it brought the city its only title? I post one star like this every day, on camera and in their own words, about where the money went and who walked away with it.